Making Arrangements
by SailorYue
Summary: What exactly led up to Aziraphale and Crowley agreeing to their little arrangement?


History likes to say that the earliest witch hunts happened mid 1400's. History isn't exactly correct on that. Every century has some fanatic trying to eliminate heathens and those they believe to be associated with the devil. This is nothing new, especially not to someone like Crowley, who had found himself bound and dragged into the center of a church in the late 1000's. He was pissed.

He was minding his own business, just sleeping in a tree like normal in a small village. He did his bad deeds for the day, and just wanted to get some rest. Not the easiest thing in this time though, as the village was TINY. And boring. So he just climbed into a rather tall tree and lounged out. At least it had been quiet and peaceful, compared to the unending cacophony of hell. And certainly a tree was not the strangest place to have fallen asleep in. His problem however, was the fact that he had ended up falling OUT of the tree, which caused him to lose his shaded glasses.

Things happened, and somehow the humans with their religious artifacts had somehow managed to overcome him. Now, if he hadn't just been asleep and fully conscious to the start, he easily could have overcome these measily humans, regardless of their religious artifacts. But now he sat there, in the middle of the town chapel, hands bound by rosaries.

"If you think you are going to get away with this, human, you have got another thing coming to you. I MIGHT reconsider killing you if you let me go now." Crowley's snake eyes full of dark anger, the yellow nearly blocking all the white.

"If thou thinkest you can tempt me to evil, devil, you will not!" The priest said with more haughty than Crowley had heard since dealing with Roman emperors.

"And what, you think you can just kill me with your human torture devices? I've seen what you've done to women who you accuse of witchcraft." Crowley was always surprised at just how dark humans can be when left to their own devices. They truly didn't need demon interference to end up in hell. "None of that will do me any harm."

"No, they probably wouldn't, foul beast. But what of being purified for the Lord?" The priest dragged Crowley roughly to a trough in the center of the room.

It was bad enough that the concectrated ground was burning through his clothing. What other nightmarish... The demon's train of thought was immediately derailed when he realized that it was not normal water.

"That's Holy water." He said, his voice all but emotionless.

"Yes. I will baptize you in the name of the Lord. You will be free of the demon within you boy, and I will have saved the town from demonic influences." The human priest seemed so proud.

Crowley tried using a miracle to break through the prayer beads tying his hands and feet together to no avail. They barely budged. He pulled back against the human's grip as the human dragged him to the baptismal pool. The priest started reciting a prayer about father, son and all that stuff.

Suddenly the door to the church burst open and a blinding light poured in, the action causing both men at the alter to stop.

Whenever humans see an angel outside of a corporeal form, they can barely process what they see. Some say they are monstrously beautiful; thousands of eyes, hundreds of rings. They aren't entirely wrong, but if they were able to retain their full memory of what they see, perhaps they would be all insane. Crowley had no problem whatsoever with understanding just what he was looking at in the entrance of the church.

Crowley stared, squinting against the blinding light, momentarily forgetting he was about to be destroyed in the worse possible way.

"My God!" The priest

"Uh... Yes! I am a messenger from God!"

The demon would laugh if he wasn't trying to avoid getting an unwanted bath in a pool of what could be equal to lava.

"My Lord! I as an emissary, I am doing Your will by eliminating this evil beast."

"Yes, I see that," The glowing heavenly being said, voice rather ethereal. "I shall take him to his reward then, it would be a more fitting reward for such a FOUL BEAST."

It had been a very long time since he had seen an angel's true form. And this one, one he knew very personally was certainly a sight. He flinched reflexively as the angel grabbed him, mostly due to the brightness of pure light. If he stared too long he would be liable to loose his eyes all together.

"My lord, what shall I do now then?" The human asked rather meekly.

The angel hesitated, more so making sure the demon was no longer touching the consecrated ground of the church. "Um, keep doing God's work-"

"Call him 'my son.' Humans eat that up." Crowley muttered under his breath.

"-My son. Your deeds shall not be forgotten!" The angel flew out of the church in a rather quick action.

"What the HELL were you doing in a church?" The angelic being asked in a sharp whisper.

Crowley rubbed at his wrists, still not looking at the being of pure light. "I'll tell you, just turn down the light will you, angel?"

"Oh! Sorry!" Suddenly the lightness dimmed down to nothing and in the place of an indescribable being only God could design, stood a blond man in cream colored clothing that matched the era, if maybe a few decades behind. "Now can you please explain how I come to find you about to be eliminated by a human priest?"

"Wrong place, wrong time. Had a temptation in the village to do then decided to nip off for a rest in a tree and fell out." The demon shrugged, leaning against the nearby tree, inspecting his singed knees and shoes. He certainly wasn't going to be going into any churches again any time soon, that was for sure. "What are you doing here, angel?"

"Well, I had some blessing to perform." Aziraphale fiddled with his clothes, righting them and smoothing any wrinkles.

"So we just ended up being in the same place, canceling each other out like always?" The demon gave a cocky grin.

"So it would seem." The silence between them was rather peaceful. "Crowley, what was this idea you had mentioned previously? I don't feel comfortable with lying to heaven. But perhaps there is something we can do similar to it?"

"What, take turns both doing the tempting and the blessing instead of wasting the time and effort of us both going?" Crowley knew the angel had cleverness in him. He liked that.

"Well... yeah. I mean, that way neither of us are truly lying, and our jobs still get done." Aziraphale shrugged a shoulder, looking around as if wondering if the trees would tell heaven that he was even contemplating doing dark deeds.

"Well, well angel, I didn't think you would have it in you." Crowley stood up carefully, still hurting from lying on consecrated ground for an extended period of time. "So an arrangement it is. We stay out of each other's ways. And on the occasion, help each other with our respective deeds."

The demon held out his hand to the angel. Aziraphale shook it. "It is agreed then."

The couldn't help but smile at each other, not realizing how much this would change their friendship in the future.


End file.
